The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 15, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Cody has just moved, and he's not taking it very well. After all his pleas to stay home from the first day in his new third grade fail, he reinvents himself as Super Cody, child genius and expert on everything. When this, predictably, backfires, he must learn to adjust to his new school without all the heroics. Duffey (Utterly Yours, Booker Jones, 1995, etc.) has created parents- -especially the father--who are ciphers and a boy who comes across as so self-pitying that it will be hard for readers to imagine what his old friends saw in him. It strains credulity that, at an age when a great deal of energy is spent on avoiding humiliation, a third grader would stupidly set himself up; it's even less believable that his classmates would be so uniformly kind, understanding, and sympathetic about it. Abrupt and didactic. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 7-10)

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